October 22, 2008

Random Coolness (Spooky Edition)

More of the small details that made a BIG impression... only this time with a spookier edge befitting this month's Blog of Horror theme. The three randomly cool-slash-spooky items below are just that: completely random elements that, for a variety of reasons, have been instant and enduring favorites of mine.

Doctor Fate's helmet: From my very first glimpse of the character on the back cover of a Justice League treasury edition, I've been fascinated by the character of Doctor Fate. A super-sorcerer who made his Golden Age debut in (the oddly titled) More Fun Comics #55 (1940), Fate's appeal for me wasn't so much his hocus-pocus as it was his arresting visual presense, particularly his golden, gleaming helmet. Completely obscuring his human face, the helmet made Fate an eerie, mysterious presence in stories that were already quite weird and surreal.

Even more eerie were the helmet's solid black eye holes, which was the standard look for Fate's Golden and early Silver Age appearances. Sure, the white "glowing" eye slits of his modern incarnation are plenty cool looking, too...but that helmet with the black, blank eyes? That's what an eldritch sorcerer with ties to ancient magic should look like!

The Puppet Master as drawn by Jack Kirby: By no means an A-list threat, Fantastic Four foe Phillip Masters, a.k.a. the Puppet Master (as originally drawn by Jack Kirby) is nonetheless one of the creepiest chracters in all of comicdom. Creating dolls from radioactive clay, the Puppet Master could control the minds of their human counterparts...which alone is a disturbing concept...but combined with a face featuring the splayed lashes and toothy grin of a vetriloquist dummy (those things have always freaked me out), well...let's just say he made an utterly unforgettable impression on me. Succeeding artists have either gone light on the dummy-features or have simply portrayed him as a non-descript bald guy, which obviously drained the character of all the freaky power of Kirby's original vision.

Gene Colan's Dracula: From my earliest days as a comic book fan, I've loved the moody, murky style and cinematic flair of illustrator Gene Colan. However, as great as his superhero stuff was, I believe his greatest and most lasting contribution to the art form...his masterpiece, if you will, is his long, critically-acclaimed run on Marvel's Tomb of Dracula. At the core of this appeal is his depiction of the title character himself. Sure, initially Marvel's Dracula was merely continuing the visual archetype popularized in movies and costume balls, but Colan took the character several steps further by moving away from the charismatic model featured in films too many to number. Instead, Colan portrayed Dracula less as a suave seducer and more a demonic, supernatural force...which was powerfully driven home through the fluid, flickering shadows of the artist's style. Of course, some of the acclaim should also go to inker Tom Palmer, who understood how to interpret Colan's flowing pencil work like no other.

Comments

Hey great website...I love the old stuff you are covering here that is great! Likewise, I saw you had a link to Mike Kunkel's work. We at Crab Orchard Comics have been on a "Kunkel Kick" for a while. Feel free to log on there - read or leave comments if you like. Yours is a great website.

I'm not sure why so many subsequent Marvel Dracula portrayals have strayed so far from Colan's model. Perhaps it's just difficult to draw Colan's Dracula well in other styles? Like that full-bearded version that popped up in several '80s titles... just looks "off" to me, and I keep thinking it's some other guy pretending to be Dracula when I see those interpretations.

(The Dracula in last week's "Monster Hulk" special illustrated text story is very Colanesque, which pleased me.)

I never really thought of it before, but looking at the image of the Puppet Master you've posted, it suggests that Kirby's design may have influenced the look of "V" in V FOR VENDETTA, which maybe makes the whole "puppet strings" thing allegorically fascinating.

Gene Colan's the use of blacks in his art was incredible, which makes him a natural for Dracula and probably any other film-noir type comic or illustration. Tom Palmer was a very good inker for his work. If you've ever seen Colon's penciled art without the inks.... astonishingly beautiful.